this is patchwork beginnings
by myhomeistheshire
Summary: After the war, Aurora goes to find them. (Part 7 of the leverage AU.)


After the war, she finds Harry first.

He's the easiest - all she has to do is talk to some people at the University of Toronto to get his address. The harder part is working up the courage; she spends an entire week in Canada before she gets up the nerve to ring his doorbell.

"Yeah?" Harry answers the door with glasses askew and hair ruffled up, and Aurora is nearly knocked over by the compelling urge to smooth it down.

He looks so much older, now. His hair is longer, and he's filled out a bit; but he still has the same green eyes, the same face that Aurora's spent years missing.

"Hi, Harry." She manages to choke past the lump in her throat. "It's me."

He's irrationally glad to see her, and he keeps lifting a hand to rest on her arm, like he has to keep reminding himself that she's real, she's here.

"How've you been?" He asks fervently, clearing a space in the cluttered room for them to sit on the couch. "How are the others?"

"I've been good." She settles down onto the couch with caution - there's some sort of liquid spilled on the other end that's causing the fabric to shoot up small tendrils of smoke. "I haven't contacted the others yet."

"But you're going to, right?" Harry's expression is radiant. "And I'm coming with you, obviously."

Aurora had arguments prepared; why he shouldn't uproot his life, how she's sure they'll all get together eventually and he shouldn't throw away everything he's worked so hard for.

She throws them out the window. She doesn't think she could handle leaving him again.

* * *

Neil is next.

He's working in London, as a cop again - Aurora's not sure if that's a way for him to forget, or to remember. When they show up on his doorstep it takes a second for him to recognize them - and when he does, complete shock shows in his expression.

"I came back." Aurora says softly, and he opens the door a little wider.

* * *

Tom is the third; it had taken her the longest to track him down, since he'd moved back to Paris to become a journalist after the war. When they appear at his house he has a pretty blonde on his arm, and he answers the door laughing.

When he sees them, he freezes. His eyes flit from one of them to the other; like he's making sure they're real.

"Who's this?" The blonde asks, and Tom doesn't reply.

"We're his family." Harry says finally, and it fits in a way that nothing has in years.

"Come in, come in!" The woman exclaims, ushering them through the door. Tom's eyes haven't left Neil's face, and Neil is studiously staring everywhere except back at Tom.

"How have - how've you been?" Tom asks, and his voice is hoarse, like he hasn't used it in months. Aurora doesn't respond - it's not her he's talking to.

"I've been good." Neil replies, after a moment of silence. "Working back in London." He gestures over to where the blonde is hastily dashing around to prepare tea. "You seem like you've got a good thing set up here."

"Yeah." Tom ducks his head, but there's something not quite sincere as he says it. "Yeah, I do."

"I graduated." Harry pipes up after a long, awkward silence, and it brings back a flood of memories, of him stepping in between arguments and acting as a peacemaker between anyone who wasn't speaking. Aurora feels a pang in her chest - it's still not quite real, them being here together.

"No kidding?" A smile breaks over Tom's face, and he claps the boy on the shoulder. "They got you doing all sorts of technical shit over in Toronto, then?"

"Yeah." Harry's face lights up. "They pretty much just put me in a room with a whole bunch of wires and old equipment and see what I come up with."

"And you?" Tom gestures to Aurora. "You on the straight and narrow, then?"

She laughs. "Not even. But I'm at least a sober criminal, now."

"Really." Tom looks skeptical. "So you don't drink. Ever."

"Nope." She lets herself revel in his surprised expression for a moment. And then, with a gesture to the woman; "Aren't you going to introduce us?"

"Oh yeah, sorry." Tom clears his throat and pulls the blonde over. "Marcie, this is Aurora, Harry, and Neil. Everyone, this is Marcie, my, uh - my fiancee."

Neil's head jerks up at that, and a stricken expression crosses his face like he's been slapped. He forces a smile quickly enough, though, and shakes Marcie's hand. "Nice to meet you." He says, and it even sounds a bit sincere.

"So how long are you in Paris for?" Marcie asks, casually linking her arm with Tom's.

Aurora glances at the others. "We . . . ah, we aren't exactly sure. Just for as long as the city keeps us interested, I suppose."

"Probably not long." Neil inserts nonchalantly, and she quells the urge to raise an eyebrow.

"I think Paris will be great." Harry throws in, a little petulantly, and Aurora knows what he's feeling. She doesn't want them to be split up again, either.

"He has a life here." She tells him, as they're settling down at the table and Tom and Marcie are in the other room. "We can't ask him to leave it."

"So why not stay?" Harry sounds angry, _viciously_ angry, and it startles her. "We all know Paris. We haven't decided where we want to set up yet. So why not?"

"We can't just invite ourselves into his life -"

"Or maybe you just don't want to bother with the effort!" Harry's voice rings out angrily, and Aurora can feel the blood drain from her face.

"I came back." She says, but it comes out as a whisper.

"The war's been over for a _year,_ Aurora." Harry's voice is weary, and the look on his face hits her like a punch to the gut. "Where were you all that time?"

She doesn't answer, and he sighs.

"You _knew_ where I would be. You just didn't want to look."

Tom and Marcie re-enter the room, and Aurora focuses all her energy on holding her tea without spilling it. This world-weary part of Harry, the part with years of pent up anger - _she_ caused it. She did this; broke them apart into so many shattered pieces.

* * *

They stay until it's late; until they've all had one too many glasses of wine (except Harry, who Tom abjectly refused to serve alcohol to, but including Aurora, who throws sobriety to the wind), and the nostalgia is hitting Aurora like the wind getting knocked out of her lungs and by the look of Neil he's doing even worse.

"What about Alfred?" Tom asks, when they're standing in the doorway, and it's obvious this is what he's been wanting to ask all night.

Aurora can't meet his eyes.

"I'm still looking," she promises. "If he's -" she can't finish the sentence. "I'll find him." She says, instead.


End file.
